Mr. Limer was a short, squat, clean-shaven but hairy dark man, with coal-black hair sweeping round a big forehead, a determined face and large, indignant brown eyes.  The Liverpool clergyman was of middle height, very thin, with snow-white hair, dark eyes and eyebrows, and a young almost boyish face, with straight, small features, and a luminous, gentle and yet intense look.  He seemed almost to glow, quietly, definitely, like a lamp set in a dark place, and one felt that his glow could not easily be extinguished.  He walked tranquilly by the side of Mr. Limer, and looked absolutely unselfconscious, quietly dignified and simple.

When he went into the pulpit the lights were lowered and a pleasant twilight prevailed.  But the preacher’s face was strongly illuminated.

Mr. Robertson preached on the sin of egoism, and took as the motto of his sermon the words—­“Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat.”  His method of preaching was quiet, but intense; again the glow of the lamp.  Often there were passages which suggested a meditation—­a soul communing with itself fearlessly, with an unyielding, but never violent, determination to arrive at the truth.  And Rosamund, listening, felt as if nothing could keep this man with the snow-white hair and the young face away from the truth.

He ranged over a wide field—­egoism being wide as the world—­he exposed many of the larger evils brought about by egoism, in connexion with the Arts, with politics, with charity, with religious work in great cities, with missionary enterprises abroad; he touched on some of the more subtle forms of egoism, which may poison even the sources of love; and finally he discussed the gains and the losses of egoism.  “For,” he said, “let us be honest and acknowledge that we often gain, in the worldly sense, by our sins, and sometimes lose by our virtues.”  Power of a kind can be, and very often is, obtained by egoists through their egoism.  He discussed that power, showed its value and the glory of it.  Then he contrasted with it the power which is only obtained by those who, completely unselfish, know not how to think of themselves.  He enlarged on this theme, on the Kingdom which can belong only to those who are selfless.  And then he drew to the end of his sermon.

“One of the best means I know,” he said, “for getting rid of egoism is this:  whenever you have to take some big decision between two courses of action—­perhaps between two life courses—­ask yourself, ’Which can I share?’—­which of these two paths is wide enough to admit of my treading it with a companion, whose steps I can help, whose journey I can enliven, whose weariness I can solace, and whose burden I can now and then bear for a little while?  And if only one of the paths is wide enough, then choose that in preference to the other.  I believe profoundly in ‘sharing terms.’”

He paused, gazing at the congregation with his soft and luminous eyes.  Then he added: